God's Zoo

By Pablo Urbanyi and Natalia Hero

Divided into 27 chapters, the novel recounts some of the childhood experiences of FÉnix, a boy who grows up in the Hungarian city of IpolysÁg, within the context of the German invasion and the subsequent Russian advance and domination of Hungary. FÉnix, who supposedly got his name because he was born at the "dawn" of the Second World War, which his parents believed to be "Humanity's rebirth, when technology, medicine and other sciences [would take] a great leap," lives in a loveless world, with his mother, an utterly cold materialist, and his father, at the head of his handicrafts factory by day, or at the Casino amusing himself with prostitutes by night. And so, abandoned by his natural parents, little FÉnix seeks refuge in the love of Judit, daughter of the peasant family that lives behind his mansion, and tends the animals, orchard, and vegetables; she works as a servant in the home while she looks after FÉnix. Judit and FÉnix build a relationship that is at the same time a combination of friendship, brotherhood, motherhood, deep love, and sexuality. During the war, from the first appearance of Hungarian troops that recapture the city for Hungary from Czechoslovakia, the arrival of the Nazis who take the Jews out of the city (including FÉnix's best friend) and send them to un unknown destination, up to the takeover of the city by the Russians, the love between Judit and FÉnix perseveres and grows, until Judit's sudden death when she steps on a mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781771835718

Book preview

Translator

1.

HE HAS NOTICED IT more than once: whether or not his past was happy, returning to it is always painful. The happy moments, because they are lost; the difficult ones, because of the pain they revive. Most of the time, he tries to evade them, but, inexorably, they return.

And in this moment, plunged into a dream, they do so with more intensity than ever before. He does not know if he is dreaming, if he is in a hospital because of an accident or some grave illness or if, as his open casket awaits him like a yawn, he finds himself in this infamous final moment before death when one recalls the entirety of one’s life. To his surprise, the desire to return bursts in him more powerfully than ever; the desire to be born anew, a desire he knows to be absurd. Absurd, really? He opens his eyes: the ceiling delineates his desire, infinity, eternity. Beyond it, of course, he can picture the sky plagued with stars, and between them, eyes that watched him and that now watch him again, invisible and sorrowful. A starry sky that, day and night, envelops the earth as it travels through space, and he, the star traveller he had always dreamed of being, could dive into the stardust—a haze, perhaps that of a thick wood, densely perfumed with pines—into the mist rising from the moist prairie, from the fresh clovers of the evaporating morning dew. Yes, submerge himself, and hear Judit sing; his first love, who, in the kitchen, would hum a song that went: A woman is like a wild dove, ever searching for her mate. Yes, this is where he arrives, immersed in the fog, in the darkness of night, but by the light of these fifteen candles (yes, the fifteen, no more no less, that he has left burning), Ipolyság emerges from the haze; the little town of his birth that sheltered and protected him from the war.

He has not yet been reborn, but he is already there. He knows that he will be born and he also knows that, because words obscure the truth, the story of his memories will not be the same and that his old age will compel him to reflect on and interpret the events that comprise it. And so, it is highly likely that, without him realizing it, he may reveal what he wishes to conceal and, for lack of words, conceal what he wishes to reveal.

2.

APART FROM THE date that appears on his birth certificate, the date that once was but is no more (although the world in which it saw the light existed already), he does not remember the day he was born nor when he first became aware that he answered to the name Fenix. According to his parents, it was the dawn of a new renaissance for humanity, in which technology, medicine, and other sciences made great strides (the Second World War) when he was conceived in a bed in Czechoslovakia, and, in the same bed, with a flattened head—to the horror of his mother, who took him for an idiot and would treat him as such for the rest of his life, he emerged from her womb, but in Hungary. With time—perhaps because his head rounded out within a few days—he would come to understand with greater clarity this small confusion between nations that seemingly made one same bed into two. He would learn that, due to a lack of textbooks on freedom or any sources of information on any variation of the same theme, children were made in beds and, generally—because of sexual oppression, the lack of free love, and lesbian mothers—with one’s wife. And given that medical science had not yet pathologized birth and death, in addition to conceiving and birthing children, one would also die in the same bed at home instead of in a hospital. The change in countries is rather easy to explain: without speaking outright of democracy but (as had been the case since the Enlightenment) starving for liberty, the Hungarians, during his mother’s pregnancy, some months before Fenix was born, came to reclaim the territories that had been lost in the First World War. No, he does not remember the day; like any member of humanity, he was born with a blank mind (and, if such a thing exists, a blank soul as well), and without any knowledge of his genetic programming. Nor does he remember his first steps, which must have been hesitant, and which he continues to take without a clear destination. But yes, he hazily remembers: Judit, a small bilingual city, Hungarians and Slovaks living together in harmony and hating each other in secret—as though they had always been there; he has only to close his eyes for them to return, like magic. A city surrounded by a wall that was perhaps built in historical times to keep out Turks or Barbarians or imaginary enemies that could materialize at any moment out in the world unknown beyond its confines. A wall made obsolete by technological advances, but whose shadow safeguarded the city like a second maternal womb. He remembers its narrow cobblestone streets, just wide enough for him to walk hand in hand with Judit; sinister and broken, not designed for cars, barely even for horse-drawn carriages, climbing the Calvary hills and through which, in a child’s mind, undoubtedly also trotted D’Artagnan. A tall person could touch both the walls on either side just by stretching out their hands—Fenix dreamed of growing and, one day, accomplishing this feat. There was (or should he say there had been?) a church with two bell towers; the bells could be seen sticking out of one of them, their tolls marking the passage of time hour after hour, spreading mournful news into the ether. There was (or should he say there is still?) a cemetery full of ancient, mouldy tomb-stones, perhaps centuries-old, ideal for the set of a Dracula movie, as well as more modern ones. Over all of them loomed the branches of weeping willows, nourished by the sap of the dead and the ironwoods, that whistled their laments as they swayed in the wind.

A few blocks beyond the church, a hill. The bottom of it saw the birth of a path; the Path of Sorrows, leading the Easter procession to the Calvary, with believers burdened by a real wooden cross (today they would demand at least minimum wage and stipulate that the cross be made of compressed cardboard or plastic, which imitate wood just as well). At the top, on a small plateau, Christ crucified, his eyelids heavy. On either side of him, the two thieves. The plateau was nestled in a mound that was climbed from the side and on either side of the hill descended rows of vines for local wine. Christ could not see them, but the people asked for his blessing for a fruitful harvest. From there, off to the right, the view bounced between the red rooftops of houses or plunged down into the alleys to arrive at the central square and City Hall, which did not stand out, but it was known that they were there because of the Holy Virgin on the pillar, immortalized in a photograph with Bartók. Below, in front of it, past the vineyards at the bottom of the hill, a winding river lined with trees divided the city into two halves that were merged by an elevated path running through the field and two bridges; the first, over small beaches where children swam in the summer, where the elders fished out of boredom and the poor out of hunger. Under the second bridge, near Fenix’s house, a small lake that they skated on in the winter. In the spring, with the thaw, the river overflowed with all the water from the snow on the hills as it accelerated its course. In the forests and the field, waters joined the lake, and often froze over again in the field itself, forming an infinite but dangerous skating rink—dangerous precisely because of its boundlessness, and given its patches of thin ice—where the children, including Fenix, sailed as well as skated. The flood from the thaw—at the cost of the invasion of some houses’ basements—made the fields fertile, just like the grounds of little Fenix’s palace that could be seen from the Calvary. From there, or any other part of the field, especially in the summer, it was rare not to see the man that had been baptized The Fool of the Hill precisely because he was always standing on the hill, motionless as a statue, staring at the horizon, wearing a straw hat, a ragged shirt, and even more ragged pants, leaning on a cane or staff next to his belongings—a bunch of old clothes wrapped in cloth. In the winter he was seen more rarely, and no one knew where he was when he wasn’t seen. It was speculated that he hid in some cave in the forest, as though he were a spirit. Some said he was waiting for someone who had abandoned him; others, that he was waiting on a promise (though no one knew what it was) that would never be fulfilled, and that this was the cause of his madness. However, everyone knew when he disappeared for good, and from that day forth they began calling him The Idiot of the Hill. But, legend or bizarre occurrence, like the apparition of the Virgin, or guilt morphed into a ghost, more than one person had sworn that they had seen him on one of the hills, down to the descendants of those who were present for his name change.

And before bidding farewell to Jesus and descending with a sigh, one could take one final glance at the ruins of the fortress built in the era of Ipolyság’s founding, probably the 13th century, or at the alleyways and the wall; these ruins were the only evidence of the city’s antiquity and served as proof of the veracity of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Some, through an eagerness to honour them, said that they had suffered a fate not unlike that of the Parthenon with the Turks. The Russians or Germans had used it as a munitions dump and a violent explosion tore down its walls that had still been standing before the Second World War.

Even further off in the distance: other hills—almost mountains; forests of fragrant pines perspiring sap; steep mountainsides for sleds in winter; wild mushrooms and violets and raspberries in the spring and summer. Unusual forests, to be sure; in addition to those fruits, it was populated by lost souls in mourning, ghosts, and gnomes, awake and alive thanks to the legends that were told, and that still lived on in fairy tales in children’s picture books.

The path, which, aided by the bridges that crossed over the lake and river, passed through the street where Fenix’s palace stood, leaving to one side the hospital and other houses and streets, forked into two branches: to the left, the Hungarian border; to the right, it ran steeply along the side of the Jewish cemetery and, at the end, broadened and died to give way to the small station at the foot of the hill—a station from whose platform, if one were searching for where the path led, one could see, between the other tracks for the changes or cargo trains, the only pair of tracks that passed through the tunnel and lost itself in the darkness. There were some who claimed, perhaps rather optimistically, that if one focused, a dim light could be seen at the end. The trains that would glide over these rails carried people to other cities, towns, countries, and worlds faraway and legendary. It was said that the tracks led all the way to America, a world full of golden fruit called oranges, fabulous but not yet yearned for.

In addition to a large group of relatives, aunts, uncles, second cousins, grandparents, what else was there or had there been? A band of illiterate gypsies that livened up local parties, birthdays, weddings, and wakes. The blacksmith’s, where his grandfather brought his horse; firemen who put out the fires in the fields and pastures; policemen to chase down the thieves and arsonists and throw them in jail; a court that lacked today’s tolerance, since there was no need for consumers; and the gallows in one of the City lawns awaiting their next candidate. No one remembered it ever having been used, but, in Fenix’s lifetime, it was taken down and it was a real event—not to say a macabre celebration, but ultimately still a celebration. That was a bit of news that, along with other stories, most of which were local, spread through the herald, who with his drum and a strange uniform that gave him a medieval air, made his way through the small city and, stopping on the usual corners, gave a drum roll. The neighbours would run over and once a circle formed, he would unroll a scroll and—horseman of the Apocalypse, in Hungarian or Slovak, or sometimes both, with a thundering voice as though the facts depended on him alone—announce births and deaths, weddings, mayoral activities, prominent and important visits to the city, reminders of parties and, once finished, rolled the paper up to signal the end of the news, said: I know nothing more, don’t press me, and escaped from the crowd that accosted him with questions as though he were the Oracle of Delphi.

In front of the church stretched out a square that, to put it one way, had multiple uses. Every Saturday there was a market there with all the city’s provisions; fruits, fresh vegetables, livestock. Two or three times a year, once around Easter, large fairs took place, with cows, bulls, horses, sawn and standing wood. In the middle of the square, a garden with shrubs, benches, flowers and, at the centre, on a large pillar, the Virgin—maybe Mary—wearing a crown of light bulbs that were lit up at night. Forgotten by all (so accustomed were they to her), she tenderly watched over the believers and the harmonious parade of transactions, the just and blessed sales. Every so often a carousel would appear and, very frequently, during the large fairs, hordes of acrobats.

A bakery that sold delicious pies, where the lazy and well-to-do housewives would shop, with outdoor tables. In the summer, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, at a time when the seasonal cycles weren’t made obsolete by fridges and freezers, doubly delicious ice cream was enjoyed on the outdoor terraces, where pot-bellied policemen and firemen admired a brass band who barely fit on the small platform, under an awning that shielded them from the sun, elbowing themselves to play more comfortably. Slightly out of tune, they would play military marches and waltzes from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire whose rhythms, like echoes of history hitting the ground, marked with their beats the elders who had disappeared into the sun.

After Sunday mass, visits to the cemetery with aunts and cousins were almost mandatory, for without the custom the obligation would be forgotten and it would become a necessity. There rested Fenix’s mother’s ancestors and relatives (his father was from other lands and had arrived in Ipolyság like a noble Don Juan, with his ancestors sleeping their perpetual dream in the chapels of their fortresses or the pavilions of their gardens). His mother would introduce him to them as they walked by their graves, saying: Here lies your grandmother, here your uncle Janos—pride of the family, who died of tuberculosis right when he was about to graduate from medical school, in this other one your great-grandfather, this one is the grave of my twin sister ... and this is where I will rest, next to your father ... well ... I don’t know ... I don’t much like the idea ... this plot here is reserved for your widowed aunt, they’ve already buried her husband here ... And in this way, Fenix could see his growing family, with company guaranteed for all of eternity.

After these appetite-inducing visits came the Sunday lunches, when grace was given to God (rather than the supermarket manager) for the food. These were little parties with all the aunts, uncles, cousins—a family large enough for one not to feel, at least in the memory of the man recalling his story, alone in the world as he is now. Perhaps, if he had the strength (there is nothing to suggest that he doesn’t), he would grit his teeth and say: Yes, alone, in spite of overpopulation. He can recall his widowed grandfather smoking a pipe after lunch, during the afternoon nap—his mother’s father, whom she loved very little, and who, since he was young and already married with several children, crossed mountains and valleys, knowing nothing of scientific discoveries and romantic attractions through the spread of aromas from kilometres away, drawn by the subtle and adhesive perfume of the sirens that detained him in other lands, under the guise of buying and selling horses (nothing more than an excuse, according to his mother, since his occupation—always with the same horse, to avoid paying taxes—hid his real business of selling wine to the taverns of the little city and of the small towns that surrounded it). After the Sunday lunches—accompanied by a bottle of his own vintage wine from the vineyard on the hillside of the Calvary, blessed by Jesus up above who, thanks to his pleas for the multiplication or a pact to cultivate wine for mass, occasionally shook his head and gave a sad look out over his property—his grandfather, sitting in an armchair in the living room that they referred to as a lounge, with a voice worn by tobacco and wine, would softly croon; "Oh, death, deliver the soul with the last breath of love ..." Under Fenix’s gaze, he would doze off with a smile on his face as his pipe went out. There was a slyness in his grey half-open eyes, the muscles of his face relaxed, exuding the satisfaction of having lived. Fenix, now grown, could swear that he was the only happy man he’d ever known. And thus, a decade later, worn by the years, he would die as he sang, with a scandal, but delivering his soul with the last breath of love.

There were other songs, those sung by Judit (whom Fenix has lost forever), that she hummed in the kitchen while she peeled potatoes, or when she looked after him at night, singing him lullabies that went turururu. The ones his mother sang, as dusk fell, while she sewed up socks, that he would sing all his life in spite of the advent of the Beatles. He vaguely remembers others that, through the turururus, told the stories of soldiers who had been to war, those that returned, those that didn’t and those that never would; of adventurers like Robin Hood; of the swallows in the summer that left when winter fell; of storks who built their nests in bell towers; of hills, of land, of landscapes, of wild violets. Oh, so many songs. This, Fenix could easily understand: in those days, his relatives and all the towns-people were dejected beings who knew nothing of comfort. There were only radios with little men speaking inside of them, and there were no tape recorders or cassettes or CDs or stereos or professionals to sing through them. Because of that lack of comfort, they needed to painstakingly express their sorrows, pains, and joys themselves. He also remembers whispers (of fear, perhaps?) about a war, still far away, but that was inevitably approaching.

He remembers a large house that rose up on the first street after the bridge that crossed over the lake where he learned to skate in the winter, hand in hand with Judit. It was almost in the country and was a big house, very big, it really was, or at least to him, a mere child, it seemed like a palace. Behind the house, an orchard, fruit-bearing trees, a vineyard, a vegetable garden, a henhouse, geese, a stable with two or three cows and a pigsty where they would fatten up a pig or two. All tended